English Plot: A schoolteacher, Niki Junpei (Eiji Okada), goes on an expedition to collect insects that inhabit sand dunes. When he misses the last bus home, the villagers suggest that he stay the night. They guide him down a rope ladder to a house in a sand quarry, to stay with a young widow (Kyōko Kishida), a meek and simple woman whose husband and daughter were killed in a sandstorm and who now lives alone. She is employed by the villagers to dig sand for sale to be used in concrete and to save the house from burial in the advancing sand.

Woman in the Dunes or Woman of the Dunes (砂の女 Suna no Onna, “Sand woman”) is a 1964 Japanese New Wave film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara and starring Eiji Okada and Kyōko Kishida. It received positive critical reviews and was nominated for two Academy Awards. The screenplay for the film was adapted by Kōbō Abe from his 1962 novel.